10 Years Later (Larry 1d)

Chapter 16

They exited the room and saw Melanie with four strangers, one woman and three men, standing on the edge of the studio with huge smiles on their faces, bursting into applause as they saw Louis and the lads. Melanie ran up to Louis with a huge smile, bursting with pride and she threw her arms around him to give him a giant hug. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other strangers each hugging one of the lads and he assumed they were each of their allotted management team members. Melanie gushed at how proud she was of him, how well he'd done and that it had gone so much better than they'd ever imagined. She asked Louis how he felt and Louis beamed at her and told her with a laugh that he felt better than he had for ten years.

Breaking away from Louis, Melanie introduced him to the rest of the management team who all seemed really friendly and had so many nice things to say. The boys mentioned that they were hungry, and would like some food – with Niall exuberantly shouting, "Nando's!", when they were asked what they wanted to eat. They each headed to their dressing rooms to wipe off their make-up and get changed, before they headed back to the complex to eat. Niall, Liam and Zayn piled into their shared car, while Louis shared a car with Harry so that his driver could go to Nando's to pick up their order.

Louis was silent in the car, feeling exhausted and drained from seeing the other boys again. Harry seemed to understand and didn't push him for conversation, sensing that Louis was a little overwhelmed. They sat with their thighs touching in comfortable silence until Louis said so quietly, in voice lower than a whisper, like he'd hoped Harry wouldn't be able to hear it, "I missed you".

Harry didn't answer and Louis felt half relieved that Harry hadn't heard him, half disappointed. But then, a second later, he felt Harry's long arm reach around his shoulders, felt a soft kiss on his forehead and heard a whisper back so quiet he might have imagined it, "I missed you too". Louis felt the tension leave his body and he relaxed into Harry, leaning his head drowsily on Harry's shoulder. They stayed like that for the rest of the journey until they were dropped off at Harry's house, the lad's car pulling up a minute or so later.

The lads flopped on Harry's couch and chatted while he made them all tea, somehow remembering their tea preferences perfectly even after all this time. They sat and caught up on the time they'd spent apart and reminisced about the days in the band. About half an hour later there was a knock on the door and one of the bodyguards came in with their Nando's orders which made Niall's eyes light up. He announced dramatically "Nando's, love of my life!" which made all the boys laugh as they plated up their food and started tucking in.

Melanie and the rest of the management team came in and debriefed the group as they were eating, letting them know that they had got a huge amount of great footage from the reunion and that the TV special was going to be sensational. One of the men on the management team, Louis thought perhaps Zayn's manager but he wasn't really sure, asked if they didn't mind, could the lads hold off tweeting, until Louis had his twitter account up and running. He explained that the management team thought it would be really great press if they went quiet for a day, until Louis tweeted the selfie of the boys he had taken. The boys nodded, seeing the sense in that and Melanie added that they hoped it would be tomorrow, as it would be a Monday.

Louis was a little shocked when he realised that it was Sunday, having completely lost track of the days. He couldn't believe it only been a week since Simon called him. He ran through the week in his head; He got the phone call on Sunday; Monday he went to work and saw his mum after; Tuesday they got the shock of the paparazzi and traveled to London, met with the PR team and then the styling team; Wednesday they had more PR training, Harry's TV interview, the wardrobe department coming over and then splitting up with Emma; Thursday he'd had the day off to get over the break-up, Zayn, Niall & Liam's TV interview and he'd gone over to see Zayn in the evening; Friday had been Louis' TV interview; Saturday he'd gone for a run and recorded his individual interview for the reunion; and finally today, Sunday, they'd had the reunion.

Louis felt a bit dazed that so much had happened, so much had changed in a week. He'd been on a massive roller-coaster and was very relieved to tune back into the management team letting the lads know that they now had the rest of today, Monday and Tuesday to do as they pleased and to catch up with each other and rest, before they'd be reviewing the footage and editing of the reunion recording on Wednesday. They requested that they stay in the complex, out of the sight of cameras until the tweet had gone out, to maintain the mystery and suspense. Niall wiped his mouth with his sleeve, pausing eating to mention firing the PR team before his manager smoothly cut in to say they'd taken care of it and already fired them, having heard the men's wishes in the studio. He reassured them they would have a new team in by Wednesday and management team filtered out, leaving the lads to relax and enjoy themselves.

The five of them hung out for an hour or so more before Zayn, Niall and Liam made their excuses and went to see their wives and fiancé leaving Harry and Louis alone. Louis stood up to leave, nervously playing with his sleeve before Harry looked up at him with his doe eyes and asked, "Do you want to stay, watch a movie maybe?" Harry had said it casually but with so much hope in his eyes that Louis couldn't say no, instead sitting back down next to him. Louis resolutely ignored the part of him that wanted to be near to Harry all the time, telling himself he was only doing it because Harry wanted him to. They settled down next to each other and put on a film they'd both seen before, Louis lying next to and slightly on top of Harry on the sofa so that they were almost spooning. They fit together so well, Harry's longer and leaner body encompassing Louis and Louis swore to himself that it definitely did not feel like for the first time in over ten years, he was home.